Hunters' Children
by terminalfeline
Summary: The children of the heroes and villains past are preparing for the Hunter Exam, but sinister forces conspire to disrupt their journey, plans held in waiting for centuries finally beginning to bear fruit. Vengeance. Oaths. Binding promises. Wishes and dreams. They entwine around the new generation, pulling them into a vicious conflict. (ON HIATUS - all notes were wiped oops)
1. Setting Sail

I wrote this fic years ago under the name of HikaruTsubasa, left it to rot for five years, then found it and went "Hmmm, I could totally rewrite this better." and that's how the fic was revived. Yayyy.

* * *

 **Chapter 1 – Setting Sail**

* * *

The wind blew the salty tang of the sea through the bedroom window, blowing through the curtains and ruffling the hair of a sleeping girl. Yendis was a port city, and though the family of four did not live anywhere near the centre of activity, they were still close enough to have things rust at an abnormally fast rate.

The girl curled up further in her blanket, shivering slightly, but all she managed to do was change into a position where the wind had… easy access. To the nape of her neck. Further trying to avoid this resulted in her falling out of the bed. The wind, satisfied with its mission of "wake the girl up", settled to a mild flutter. The girl's disorientated hand reached for the air once, twice, and maybe four or five more times before she finally managed to find her cell phone. She flicked it on.

The display read 8:43am.

She blinked. She had to leave at nine.

She scrambled up, got dressed in record time, charged down the steps, and slipped. The combination of smooth stairs and improperly worn socks continued to be a disastrous one.

Fortunately, the stair she slipped on was the third from the bottom. Unfortunately, her father had witnessed the rather magnificent fall.

Ever the playful joker (though he'd rather not be tarred with the same brush as one of his old acquaintances), Shalnark suppressed a snort at his daughter's ungraceful tumble.

"Careful there Shira," he said, a glimmer of amusement in his eyes. "You're going to get eliminated from the exam before you even get there."

Shira snorted in derision. "As if, Dad. Not when I've inherited your brains!" she proclaimed triumphantly as she flicked her fringe out of her eyes, stalked past her father, and promptly fell over a large china tortoise.

"Ow!" she yelped, cradling her shin. "Since when was that dumb thing there?"

"My brains aren't the only thing you've inherited," Shalnark remarked blithely.

"Daaaad, shut up." Shira bit her lip and tried to hold onto the last vestiges of her pride, which lasted for all of two seconds before she smelt a delicious aroma coming from the kitchen. Her heart fluttered as if struck by Cupid's arrow, and indeed, Shira's only constant love affair was with food. More specifically, sweet food.

"Dad?" she asked, saliva near dripping from her mouth.

"Yes, darling ditzy daughter of mine?"

"Is that…"

"Blueberry and chocolate pancakes?" Shalnark laughed. "Yes it is, and it's your favourite, as I know."

Before the words had fully left his mouth, Shira had vanished into the kitchen. – only to promptly reappear with an enormous pile of purple-ish pancakes piled high on her plate. She carefully set it down on the table like she was handling a newborn baby, then sat down and started eating voraciously.

Perhaps that wasn't the best comparison.

"Shira," cautioned her mother, with her own pile of pancakes. "If you eat that fast you'll regret it later-"

"And if I eat slow I might miss the exam! What a dilemma!" shouted Shira, not slowing her pace at all.

"Mum, what's a dilemma?" asked her little brother, his tender young age of seven years giving him an unnatural curiosity towards complex words.

Shizuku adjusted her glasses, and explained. "A dilemma is a belief that one's actions are all preordained, and there is no escape fro-"

"Muuuum," Hiro grumbled. "You told me that one yesterday, that's fate."

She blinked. "Oh. So it is."

"A dilemma, Hiro, is a situation where it's very difficult to decide what to do because all the options seem equally good or bad." Shalnark talked fast when he explained things, generally through his enthusiasm for the subject (or more likely, enthusiasm for educating others).

Hiro's eyes widened in surprise. "So… Shira thinks that the Hunter Exam is just as important as eating lots and lots of sugar?"

"I doubt that very much," said a new voice from the front door. A slender figure stood there, silhouetted by the sunlight. A mildly cynical grin played across her features as she brushed a hand through her fringe. No-one commented on her timing or her rather strange pose – such things were often inherited.

"Itoko! Is it already time to leave?"

In response to Shira's exclamation, Itoko stepped out of the glare, revealing her short and fluffy hair that looked like someone had dumped a cat into pink dye. Her gold eyes matched the look to perfection, as did her mannerisms.

"The boat leaves at ten past nine, Shira." Her tone was measured, but still contained a tinge of annoyance. "Grab you gear and get movin- whoa!"

Shira, as it turned out, had been more prepared than expected. A decent sized backpack was already nearly hitting Itoko's face as the other girl charged helter-skelter out of the door, carefully adjusting the straps holding her throwing knives in place as she ran.

"Come on Itoko! We've got to get to the harbour!" she shouted, hair ruffling in crazy directions in the buffeting wind. "Bye Hiro! Bye Mum! Bye Dad!"

Her family waved at her retreating figure. Shalnark watched his daughter run, a faint trace of nostalgia wrapping itself around his heart.

"Hey Itoko!" Shira's voice called out, still loud despite the distance. "Hurry up or I'll say bye to you too!"

Itoko, however, continued at her leisurely pace. After all, she still had time. All the time in the world.

The wind picked up again, gusting through the port city and making strange howling sounds amidst the buildings and wires. Like a trickster, it made fragile objects topple, flipped skirts, collapsed a soufflé, and blew dust in every direction. But it eventually died down, and all one could hear was the faint whistling of it humming through the struts of the Great Harbour Bridge.

A figure stood atop the vast structure, watching the busy port. After a moment, the figure vanished, leaving nothing but a faint gust of wind.

* * *

Whoa that ended up being a lot longer than the original chapter, though 1000-ish words isn't that much. And yes, there is a lot more plot than the original which was pretty much going to be just ~yay second gen romp through hunter exam yay~, from what I remember. If you want to find the original to compare, it has the same name (Hunters' Children) and is by HikaruTsubasa. I may rewrite the other two fics on that account as well, by the way.


	2. Friends Stay Together

**Chapter 2 – Friends Stay Together**

* * *

Heroes and villains aren't supposed to mix, you know.

* * *

"Karu, are you absolutely _sure_ we aren't lost?"

Dry leaves crunched underfoot. A faint breeze rustled the leaves of the forest.

"For the last time Sil, I'm dead certain, okay? If there's one thing I'm good at, it's navigation."

A trail of footprints. Gold, silver and obsidian glinted in the dappled light.

"Guys, don't squabble. Kiki, you keeping up alright?"

Fleeting birdsong. The scurrying of small animals.

"I'm fine, Jan. You don't always have to be the responsible one, you know?"

A vast forest that charged up to the very edge of a sheer cliff, and a ragtag band of four children.

Karu, the leader and navigator, grinned at the others, dark eyes flashing as he pointed forwards. "We're almost there, okay guys? Almost there!"

The other three looked at each other.

Sil was thinking about how the ditzy blond had said that two hours ago, and was also likely to lead them off the edge of a cliff. Kiki, his twin sister, was having a melodramatic internal monologue about tragic child ghosts while wearing an utterly deadpan expression. As the eldest of the group, Jan was making a very earnest effort to figure out where on earth they actually were and why the forest they were in had a distinct sense of wrongness to it.

They followed Karu anyway, because the kid's charm was off the charts and it was very, very hard to say no to those puppy eyes.

An hour later, Karu found himself restrained by Jan and Kiki, with Sil ranting extremely irritably at him. The rant, while long-winded and peppered with creative ways to not swear, essentially boiled down to: "This is an intervention, you suck at navigating, please stop before we all die in these woods and become creepy child ghosts."

Karu blinked at him in surprise. "Sil, don't be mean. My navigation is perfect, we should have been out of these woods hours ago."

Unfortunately, this only compounded Sil's pent-up frustration. "Karu, I don't give a Moby-Dick about that! I'm hungry and I want fast food, not the stuff we've packed, something really spicy! I'm sick of these woods that all look the same, and the stupid birds, and the bugs, and I want to just get the _fu_ -"

"Oh right!" Jan's sudden exclamation cut Sil's shouting short. "That's what's wrong with this forest!"

Sil gave him a flat look as Jan started moving around in excitement.

"That thing you just said about the forest looking all the same. It's been bugging me a lot but I didn't realise it until you pointed it out!"

Kiki froze, realisation and horror crossing her face. "Guys..."

The other three turned to her.

"Guys, I think we've wandered into a Lost Place."

The four looked at each other, biting their lips.

Lost Places were small areas of land where one's sense of direction became uncontrollably warped. Spherical in shape, migratory and increasingly common, the phenomenon was one that led many astray in journeys through confined areas such as forests, where the warping of the air was hard to notice until it was too late.

Sil cursed under his breath. Getting out of a Lost Place was no mean feat.

* * *

An hour later, the four finally emerged from beneath the canopy of the trees. Waves crashed against the cliff dropping straight into the ocean. The wind whistled past a rocky outcrop reaching far over the sea.

"It was lucky we were close to the ocean," said Karu, breathing in deeply. They had managed to escape the Lost Place through following the sound of the waves. "And look!" He pointed towards the horizon. "We're just in time for our ride!"

* * *

The ship swayed lazily on the waves. A few seagulls clung to the mast, occasionally relieving themselves on unsuspecting passengers. Shira sat in the crow's nest, watching the birds with an eagle eye. Her hand gripped her tools tightly as she inched closer to the gull, slowly adjusted herself into position... and started to sketch the devil-bird. She mumbled under her breath about seagull death glares and the differences between aggressive ones that hunched their body, ready to strike at a moment's notice, and the friendlier ones that looked around curiously, necks outstretched.

Her moment was shattered when her companion, a short woman wearing an ornate hooded cape, suddenly took a deep breath and yelled out:

"Land ahead, Captain! Looks like a long cape!"

The seagulls scattered. Shira looked irritably at the girl, who shrugged.

"I have to tell the Captain if I see anything, you know. Earning our fare and all that."

"Ugh, I know." It didn't change the fact that a particularly fearsome-looking devil-bird was now in the sky somewhere, and not standing on the mast.

"You're an artist?" asked the woman, tilting her head. Her hood shifted, revealing blindingly bright platinum blonde hair. "Aren't you headed to the Hunter Exam? I'll admit you have some talent in drawing, but what use would such a skill be in the Exam?"

Shira's eye twitched. The woman had a point, but the question made her hand curl involuntarily into a fist anyway. Biting back bitter comebacks, Shira mumbled: "You don't know what they're going to test. And it isn't exactly the only skill I have." Blood was rushing to her head, and a violent urge to just do _something_ and prove the woman wrong was overwhelming. A seagull fluttered down and perched itself on the very end of the yardarm and before she herself realised what she was doing, Shira had flipped one of her throwing knives out of its sheath and flung it gull-ward in one fluid movement.

It missed the bird by a mile. The thing stood there and preened its feathers, not even acknowledging that it had just had a near-death experience.

The woman snorted ungracefully, grabbing onto the edge of the crow's nest for support. Shira pouted inwardly as she grabbed at the reels taken from fishing rods that were attached to her legs, and wound up the one attached to the knife she had thrown. The woman was still laughing by the time she had fully reeled her knife back in. She eventually calmed down, and offered a hand.

"I'm Cerise." A small giggle escaped her mouth. "...Knife to meet you."

Shira stared at Cerise incredulously, but couldn't stop the corners of her lips curling up. "Nice to meet you too," she replied, taking her hand and shaking it. "The name's Shira. Maybe don't draw conclusions so fast next time?"

She was about to add in more puns when she noticed her companion's expression change from amused to suddenly horrified. Following her line of sight, Shira saw that land was much closer now, and there was a huge outcrop reaching out over the ocean from the cape, four figures standing on the very tip.

"Sorry Shira, we can talk later." Cerise adjusted her hood, covering her face and hair. "I'm feeling a bit seasick. Sways a fair bit up here. I'll send a replacement."

With that, she hurried down the ropes. Shira stared after her, wondering what had made Cerise react so badly.

* * *

Meanwhile, on top of the tip of the outcrop, a four-way argument was starting to heat up.

"Are you serious? That's the plan?" shouted Jan, looking furious. "Absolutely not! That's way too dangerous!"

Kiki looked annoyed. "Jan, it's the only way to get onto the ship, because the entire coastline around here is sheer cliffs! I told you this!"

"I'm really hungry," Sil complained, a pained expression shadowing his face. "Can we please eat something?"

"Shut up Sil!" Karu looked like he was desperately holding something back... "I. Need. To. Peeeeeee!" ...which he was.

"You can pee anywhere! Where am I gonna get the food I deserve?"

"All I'm saying is, this plan is utterly unsafe-"

"Just cause you're a paranoid scaredy-cat-"

"Can we eat-"

"GUYS, I NEED TO PEE SO BAD-"

"NOBODY IS ALLOWED TO GO FORWARD WITH THIS PLA- oof."

There was a second of silence as the argument stopped, but the quietness was broken near instantly by the sound of Jan, Sil and Karu screaming as they fell ocean-ward, having been tackled off the outcrop by Kiki. As they fell, they saw that their destination was not the ocean, but a ship that was no longer on the horizon and was in fact, directly below them. Sil recovered the fastest - he hooked his arms through Jan and Karu's shirts and stabbed his fingernails through the canvas of the sail. Kiki, who had maintained her balance, had landed on the yardarm, surprising Shira. Itoko, who had been climbing up to the crow's nest to replace Cerise, slipped from surprise and nearly fell. Vertical rips tore into the canvas as Sil slid down slowly, then all three of them were hurled off the sail as it suddenly heaved in the wind.

"Are you guys okay?" called Kiki, balancing precariously over the yardarm and into the crow's nest.

"I hate you SO MUCH!" yelled back Sil, picking canvas threads out from beneath his nails.

Kiki laughed. "I'll take that as a yes, okay?" she said, climbing down from the crow's nest, a nimbus of long silver hair floating around her.

Shira stared after her in a faint daze, until Itoko tapped her shoulder.

"Are you okay?" asked the cat-like girl, mildly amused.

Shira turned around, looking positively dumbstruck.

"I-Itoko?"

Itoko sighed, grabbed Shira's shaking shoulders, and shook them slightly.

"Yes Shira, it's me."

"W-was th-th-that..." she trailed off slightly, looking down towards the deck.

"T-t-today, junior," said Itoko flatly, gesturing at Shira to spit it out already. She didn't expect Shira to suddenly grab her excitedly and shout, fairly loudly:

"Itoko, I-I think that girl was an angel!"

* * *

Yooo look what changed a LOT from the original haha


	3. Parents are People Too

Beeeeep beep beep, all aboard the finally-updated-fic-after-it-being-ditched-for-ages wagon!

* * *

 **Chapter 3 - Parents are People Too**

* * *

It had started as a light pitter-patter of small raindrops darkening the worn stonework.

The key word here was "started".

Feitan sighed in mild frustration. The dark clouds blanketing the sky looked like they were unlikely to clear anytime soon. He flicked a stray droplet from his sleeve. While the other members of the Troupe may laugh at him for it, he detested getting rained on and going outside in these conditions was unthinkable unless he really needed to, or was under orders from Kuroro himself. This, however, left him with some problems in his current state: one, he was trapped in the courtyard of some old fort; two, said fort was in the middle of nowhere; three, he hadn't found a way out of the courtyard short of blowing up the entire thing (and he wasn't sure if that would even work - the odd barrier preventing him from leaving was definitely created from Nen); four, it was starting to rain pretty hard; and five, he was really, really bored.

Okay, maybe irreverently throwing around supposedly ancient and cursed artefacts was, in hindsight, not a very good idea. Feitan sincerely hoped that Phinks was in a worse situation that he was. After all, it was half- no, it was _mostly_ Phinks' fault that this had happened in the first place. Getting hit by something unexpected on his blind side _hurt_. It wasn't Feitan's fault that throwing the stupid (stupidly valuable, that is) artefact back at Phinks apparently activated the curse or something.

He sighed. Like most of the Troupe, he was proficient at most forms of Nen use, including En. Perhaps better than the average En in the Troupe (and that was saying something, as Coltopi raised the average by something along the lines of a ridiculous amount). Losing half of one's vision does make one more attentive to one's surroundings.

It also allowed him to wear a cool eyepatch with a skull on it.

Regardless, it was unlikely that En would help right now - the originator of the Nen barrier was most likely long-dead, and the source of the curse was back in the mansion they had been looting. He had resigned himself to being stuck here and thinking expositional thoughts when a shrill screech cut through the rain.

He smirked as he flipped open his cellphone.

"About time."

* * *

'Gon? Gon!'

"Whoa Kurapika, you don't need to be so loud!" said Gon, holding his cellphone as far from his ear as possible. A flock of wild fairy penguins scattered from the noise, squawking to themselves and fluttering their wispy wings nervously. They were high-strung little guys, thought Gon, adjusting himself on the tree to more comfortably observe them. "What's wrong?" he asked, gingerly holding the phone closer to his ear.

'Gon, I-' The Kuruta's voice sounded nervous, almost desperate. 'Have you seen Ceri?'

"No, I haven't."

' _Fuck._ '

Gon looked up from the penguins, and focused on the call. It wasn't like Kurapika to swear.

"Has she gone missing again? I can help track her down if you want me to."

'No, it's fine.' He paused. 'Tell me if you happen to see her at the Hunter Exam.'

As the call ended, Gon looked up to see a storm on the horizon.

* * *

He hung up the phone, and sighed. He had unconsciously summoned his chains during the call. The smooth metal links rattled, then vanished as he closed his fist, his hands shaking.

Maybe he had to too strict of a father. Too overbearing, too protective, too cautious, too nervous, too _scared_. He couldn't lose another. He couldn't handle losing more family. The blazing flames of his last house blended with the burning of his ancestral home in his mind. Not again. Never again. Even allowing Karu to go to the Hunter Exam had been a flurry of training, warnings, telling him to be careful of this and to watch out for that. Ceri couldn't possibly be prepared for the world. She was nine years old, for God's sakes!

Kurapika took a deep breath. Calm down. Don't jump to conclusions. Maybe she had gone to see Leorio at his clinic, just ten minutes away. Maybe she went to play at the park, and lost track of the time. Calm down. Breathe.

 _"Th-that's horrible... How could anyone do all that, just for our eyes?"_

 _"The Phantom Troupe... They're scum. The worst of the worst. I HATE them."_

He jolted up. A memory of tears and clenched fists, young voices raised in revulsion and rage.

Perhaps he should not have told Ceri and Karu. They were young, and Ceri in particular was fiercely impulsive. He took another deep breath, and resummoned his chains.

"Dowsing Chain - The Guiding Ring Finger."

He had to find his daughter.

* * *

Kalluto's hands shook as he dialled his number, waiting anxiously for him to pick up.

Stay calm. Keep your cool. Wear the mask. Be the mask.

'Kal?' A surprised and more than a little irritated voice answered. 'Kal, why are you calling me?'

"Faren's gone missing," said Kalluto, looking around nervously. "Have... have you seen him around?"

'No. He'll be fine. He _is_ our child.'

While that was true, the blunt tone did not help Kalluto's nagging worry that something odd was going on. "I know that Faren would be fine. It's just..." He hesitated, then decided to tell. "I heard my brother receive a call earlier about his friend's daughter disappearing," he said, "I'm just worried that there's a connection. The reported increases in the Lost Places is also-"

"Faren's gone missing?"

Kalluto flinched in surprise. Killua always did have awfully convenient timing.

"We'll talk later," he said into the cellphone, hurriedly hanging up.

"Man, all these kids keep vanishing, don't they?" He gave a mild chuckle and put his hands behind his head. "It's like The Pied Piper of Hameln."

"I am glad someone finds this amusing." Kalluto tried to shoulder past his brother, but found himself abruptly hugged.

"It's gonna be okay Kal. He's a Zoldyck. He'll be fine."

It wasn't what Kalluto wanted to hear, but it was the thought that counted, right?

* * *

The thunderstorm was fully raging now. Feitan kicked at a rock in irritation, sending it skimming across the courtyard and smashing into one of the walls. Of the two phone calls he had gotten, one was entirely unrelated to his current predicament and the other was Phinks being unhelpful and also probably being on the other side of the world.

There was also the matter of the odd and wispy Nen presence that occasionally flitted past. It was barely there, like a faint scent on the wind. But Feitan could sense its will. He had tried to capture it several times, to no avail - the thing slipped past his hand like a jellied eel.

Maybe he should try using En.

An application of Ten and Ren, En expanded one's aura to cover a sizeable area with Ren, then contained it with Ten to prevent loss of aura. Most people's En, as the name suggests, were spherical in shape. There were some exceptions such as Coltopi's Nen copies and other irregularly shaped En; but for now, a spherical En suited Feitan just fine.

He looked up, and found himself looking into an odd distortion in the air.

"Found you."

The distortion shifted and twisted, the heat haze-like distortion solidifying into a smug and childish grin on a lizard-like head that looked to be made of partially transparent glass. It chuckled, and its body was also revealed - it had snaked around Feitan, like a snake about to consume its prey.

"Heh, so you did."

Its voice was soft yet clear, and seemed to come from all directions at once.

"What do you want?" asked Feitan, withdrawing his En.

"Company."

Useless, but information wasn't too hard to get. Feitan casually stabbed one of its eyes out - and the entire glass-like creature vanished in a sudden gust of wind. A Nen beast? Some, especially those created by an Emitter, could be sent out long distances or be attached to a particular place or object. No matter. Despite its quite admirable In, it seemed to be fairly weak-

"That doesn't work, you know."

A human-shaped gap in the rain, with the same wispy presence. It gradually solidified again into a more visible form, this time gaining tinges of colour. It wore a dark hooded cloak that shielded its rail-thin body and childlike face from the rain.

Feitan frowned. What was this thing? An illusion-type Nen ability? An odd application of Transmutation, Emission and Conjuration? Or...

"A ghost. A memory. Trapped within this Lost Place. Like you!"

Feitan narrowed his eyes more than usual. Lost Places were _easy_ to get out of. All they did was scramble one's sense of direction. The fact that the thing had apparently read his thoughts didn't escape his notice either. A Specialist, then. Perhaps he should take the time to find the user and get him to Kuroro.

The cloaked thing giggled as it splashed in the rain. "The bigger they are," it said, suddenly leaning over him, "the harder they are to leave. Even the wind can be caught, it seems." It gave a sad smile and twirled, sending the water on its cloak all over Feitan.

Goddamn it, Phinks better be in a worse situation than him right now.

* * *

Phinks, as Feitan knew, was in no such situation. Luck had been kind to him, and he had been transported right to the door of some former acquaintances, as it were, and was getting along splendidly with them. Shalnark, being the overzealous father that he was, was trying to persuade Hiro to clean his room without being persuaded in turn to grab a random person off the street and control them into cleaning the house with his Black Voice.

"You know, I'm gonna get Mum to bring out Deme-chan if you don't clean up this mess in your room."

Hiro shivered. The demented vacuum cleaner was a recurring figure in his nightmares. The googly eyes, the slavering tongue, and the inability to regain anything that it sucked up made for some prime horror. Last time, his mum had gotten overzealous and Deme-chan'd his _bed_.

Phinks laughed. It was good to see his comrades again. Even though he could sense the traces of the Judgement Chain still binding the two, he knew the rules imposed on them - one from the Kuruta, and one from the Boss. He shook his head. No point worrying over pointless crap.

"So Phinks." Shizuku scratched her head, looking over the scroll of parchment that Phinks had left on the table. "What's this thing you've brought?"

"Uh... Well, yanno how me and Fei were gonna check out the 'cursed' jewellery set? The one with the fire opals?"

Shizuku shook her head, looking puzzled, then blinked and nodded.

"Turns out that the jewellery wasn't cursed at all. We got a pretty good price for them, and stole them back a few days later. Man, that guy was a complete sucker. Bought it at a higher price when we told him that it was cursed to do some things I won't mention in front of little Hiro here-"

"Get to the point, Phinks." Shalnark called from across the room, having temporarily given up on his son. A tactical retreat, as he put it.

"We nabbed some other stuff while we were there too, of course. I picked up that thing then, and threw it at Fei as a joke, right? Little blighter chucks it right back at me and then just vanished. And as soon as I caught the thing outta reflex, I ended up here."

* * *

"You holding up alright?"

A well-lit room, with a sleek and modern design. It would have been quite a nice apartment if the floor had not been covered wall to wall with papers, plates with half-eaten food, dust and empty cans, and the walls themselves were also covered in notes, newspaper scraps, pins and several maps.

"Yeah. I've got to hand it to you, though. You're very good at finding relevant documents."

"And you are good at making a mess of them. I know, I know, specialised sorting method."

The smaller of the two paused. "I just hope that your efforts do not end up becoming a waste."

"Your abilities could become the solution for the Lost Places. No amount of effort could be considered a 'waste'."

The two of them glanced at each other, and continued working.

* * *

AN: Feitan is actually a cat and nothing you say will convince me otherwise.  
AN2: Fairy penguins (also known as little penguins) are an actual thing, minus the literal fairy bits. They're pretty damn adorable.  
AN3: I apparently have a thing for nervous and awkward dads who can't control their children very well.  
AN4: I don't know why but Phinks has an Australian accent in my head and it refuses to change.  
Bonus AN: Apropos of nothing, but the "men" in "ramen" means noodles (or threads). Please don't say "ramen noodles", unless you're specifically talking about the noodles as opposed to, say, the broth. This has been a random PSA.


End file.
